Silicon Valley's favorite diet can lead to kidney trouble — here's how to go keto without getting sick

The keto diet is a popular strategy for rapid weight loss and can help with certain medical conditions like seizures and Type 2 diabetes.

But kidney doctors say if you're not careful, it can be a recipe for kidney stones and other health concerns.

Way - People

It's not the diet itself that's necessarily bad, but the way some people approach it.

Make sure you're staying hydrated, and keep your intake of meats in check.

Keto - Diet - Essence - Stop - Eating

The keto diet, at its essence, is rather straightforward: stop eating carbs, munch on more fat.

It is a high-fat, low-sugar weight loss strategy that forces the body into its natural starvation mode, causing it to rely on fat for fuel, instead of sugars and carbohydrates — typically what our bodies like to burn through first.

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Some people say it lifts mental fog while slimming their waistlines. Different versions of the plan have picked up a string of celebrity followers, from Kim Kardashian to LeBron James. The diet is especially popular among Silicon Valley tech workers, who see it as a path to better performance and reduced appetite, albeit with a side of bad breath.

But while decades of research suggest that a keto regimen can treat epileptic seizures and control blood glucose levels in Type 2 diabetes patients, there hasn't been much study yet of what the diet can do for the general population.

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If dieters aren't careful, they can quickly become dehydrated, ramping up the amount of protein and uric acid in their body to dangerous levels. The keto diet itself has not been linked to an increase (or decrease) in kidney stone diagnosis rates, but some doctors say they're already seeing a shift as more of their patients go keto.